China says it won't give in to pressure from Donald Trump over tariffs but is willing to negotiate. Also: New prisoner swap between US and Russia, and research into mammal brains reveals a 'galaxy'.
Chapter 1: What are the main stories covered in this episode?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and at 13.30 GMT on Thursday 10th April, these are our main stories. China says it won't back down in the face of a new 125% tariff imposed by President Trump. Sudan has taken its case accusing the UAE of complicity in genocide to the UN's top court.
And a quick saliva test could be the secret weapon in the battle with prostate cancer. also in this podcast.
That stimulus was like a series of YouTube clips, like clips of Mad Max and The Matrix and so on and so forth.
Why researchers have been showing movies to a mouse and how the results showed them a new cerebral galaxy. Donald Trump's 90-day pause on most of his higher tariffs has benefited every single nation apart from China. The US president has said that the 90 days will be used to strike deals and claims around 75 countries have asked the White House for talks.
Chapter 2: How is China responding to Trump's tariffs?
Meanwhile, China has been hit with 125% levies. This was what the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian had to say.
Out of its selfish interests, the U.S. has used tariffs as a weapon to exert maximum pressure and seek selfish gains. Let me stress that tariff wars and trade wars have no winners. China does not want to fight them, but will not fear when they come our way.
Keyu Jun is a global economist and author of The New China Playbook. She thinks businesses will try to ride out the storm in the hope things change, but the impact will soon be felt.
Soon enough, U.S. suppliers will feel it, just like Chinese suppliers are feeling it. The lesson of the first trade war is that when China slapped the 25% tariffs on U.S. soybeans, it led to so much resistance in the agricultural states that it eventually led to the phase one agreement. So China believes that by exerting equivalent pressure and having U.S.
Chapter 3: What is the impact of the US-China trade war?
suppliers also share the cost burden along with Chinese is the only way to get the U.S. back to rational negotiation.
I spoke to our China media analyst, Kerry Allen, about reaction in China from top down.
China's Ministry of Commerce has said that the door is open to talks with the US, but it regards the action in recent days as bullying China. So I'm seeing messaging today from the government saying that dialogue must be conducted on equal footing and on the basis of mutual respect. And there is a hope that the US and China will meet each other halfway.
Another message that's very strongly coming out in state media is that if the US wants to get involved in a tariff or trade war with China, it will not back down. There's a lot of messaging stressing that China will fight to the end.
And Kerry, what about what you've been hearing from ordinary Chinese people? How supportive are they? And if they're not supportive, would we hear from them anyway?
Well, it's difficult to know online because on social media platforms like Sina Weibo, which is China's equivalent of a platform like X or Facebook, you've got a situation where you've got click farms that put out patriotic messaging. You've also got censorship. So it's difficult to gauge how ordinary people feel.
But at the same time, what I'm seeing today is video footage of ordinary Chinese in Beijing talking about how they feel.
We all know that now China does not rely on other countries to develop and that we have the capabilities of independent innovation.
With the tariffs imposed by the US, we can use our own goods instead of imports. Our Chinese people are united and our country is strong enough. We'll fight till the end.
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Chapter 4: How do ordinary Chinese citizens feel about the trade war?
China has the economic strength to take resolute countermeasures against the United States tariff policies, never give up.
So Carrie, those people certainly needed no rousing up at all. But we have been hearing from some Chinese officials, some historical references that would do just that.
Yeah, absolutely. And this is something that Chinese media often do. They will draw on historical clips and say that the US in particular should learn from history. So there have been clips that have been pretty much going viral today in China. One of them is historical footage of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong saying, no matter how long a war lasts, we will never yield.
And China's foreign ministry spokeswoman has been sharing this.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman has been sharing this.
As to how long this war will last, we are not the ones who can decide. We'll never yield. We'll fight until we completely triumph.
So strong stuff there. So what next?
Well, I think it seems very clear that China isn't afraid to back down. And there's just this messaging that if the US does want this fight, that China will keep on fighting back. And Chinese people feel that it will win. So I think we're expected to see more of this if Trump decides to up the ante even further.
That was Kerry Allen. Well, despite the looming trade war and the threat of recession, it seems Donald Trump can still count on a significant amount of support domestically, particularly in the so-called red states. Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild has made it her life's work to understand the nature of American politics and the reason for Mr Trump's appeal.
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Chapter 5: What are the allegations against the UAE in the Sudan conflict?
Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild was speaking to the BBC's Justin Webb. It has been two years since Sudan was plunged into a civil war between the National Army and a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed, with reports of atrocities on both sides.
Now the International Court of Justice in The Hague is hearing accusations that the United Arab Emirates has been complicit in a genocide allegedly perpetrated by the RSF. The UAE strongly rejects the allegations. Our correspondent in The Hague, Anna Holligan, was at the court.
According to Sudan's filing here at the ICJ, the Rapid Support Forces are alleged to have committed widespread atrocities, so in particular targeting the ethnic Masalit community in western Darfur. These crimes are alleged to include systematic attacks on these non-Arab groups with the intent to destroy them as a distinct ethnic group.
The reports indicate around 15,000 civilians were massacred between May and June 2023. The RSF is also accused of using rape as a weapon of war against civilians. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced into Chad, alongside millions inside Sudan. Entire villages burned down. So widespread allegations put forward by Sudan.
But of course, they can't bring the RSF to the ICJ because it's a political military organisation and the ICJ deals with disputes between states, which is why Sudan has focused on one of the RSF's alleged sponsors.
And what is the allegation against the United Arab Emirates?
So Sudan argues these atrocities were enabled by the financial, military and political support from the United Arab Emirates, including arms shipments, drone training, recruitment of mercenaries. So it claims that this means the UAE is complicit in genocide and they're asking for reparations and also urgent measures to prevent any further genocidal acts.
And what has the UAE said in response?
We've heard a lot from the UAE over the last few days. UAE has strongly rejected Khartoum's allegations, said it would seek an immediate dismissal. The ICJ, they say, is not a stage for political theatrics. It must not be weaponized for disinformation.
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Chapter 6: How did scientists map a mouse brain like a galaxy?
And to carry out this study, the mouse in question watched a lot of videos, didn't it?
Yeah, we didn't just map the connections, but before we did that, the animal was actually imaged in a different kind of microscope that made the neurons glow brighter when they were active. And so we were able to record how individual neurons are responding to the visual stimulus that the mouse was given.
And that stimulus was like a series of YouTube clips, like clips of Mad Max and The Matrix and so on and so forth. And so in that way, we can sort of try to understand each of these individual neurons, what aspect of the movie clip tends to make that neuron active.
I have to ask now, did the mouse have a favorite clip?
Well, what's remarkable is that mice don't have a favorite clip, but individual neurons do. Individual neurons only respond to a certain visual. And our colleagues at the Baylor College of Medicine were able to build a machine learning model that in certain circumstances was able to really highly predict how individual neurons are able to respond to any visual stimulus. So in this
In this way, they built a kind of AI twin of the mouse's brain, and then they can show that sort of twin any visual stimulus and predict how the individual neurons were going to respond. And then we are able to use that to analyze the combination of these two things, the wiring diagram and the functional responses.
Dr. Forrest Coleman, a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. still to come in this podcast.
The fun part about this is we get to do a play about a subject matter that's very close to our hearts, which is telling the truth and holding truth to power.
Why George Clooney's Broadway debut is being seen as even more resonant in Donald Trump's America.
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